Cahaba was established as the first permanent capital of the state in 1820. It remained so until 1826, when the capital was moved to Tuscaloosa.
A good page about Old Cahawba HERE.
(It wasn't exactly permanent there either!)
During that time a capitol building was constructed that was topped by a dome. Here's a sketch of the long gone structure:
The dome was saved and placed atop a church in Lowndsboro. Here are some photos I shot:
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Gannett is the largest newspaper owner in the U.S....though here in Alabama they own only three papers, and as so far as I can tell none of them took part in the walkout scheduled for today. The Advertiser did not respond to my emails (great example for people their reporters want to interview, no?) Poynter has an excellent national story on where workers did take part. The Alabama Gannett papers:
DROVE the Montgomery to Selma path and return today. See some of the photos from my visit on my photo site: www.timlennox.photos
The Washington Post identifies the two crossings as being in Pelham, near Birmingham:
"Pelham, Ala., will use its $41.7 million grant to build a bridge over two crossings on County Road 52 in the heart of the city that officials say are frequently blocked, leaving first responders unable to access half the city."
The $570-Million in grants this year will improve safety at 400 crossings...a tiny per-centage of the nation's crossings.
Complicating the issue is the increasing lengths of trains on the tracks. The post reports there were:
"2,200 grade-crossing incidents resulted in 276 deaths and 800 injuries last year".
Alabama glad not to be on this USPS list!
City list (none in Ala) is HERE.
Top 10 Dog Bite States:
State |
2021 |
2022 |
|---|---|---|
CA |
656 |
675 |
TX |
368 |
404 |
NY |
239 |
321 |
PA |
281 |
313 |
OH |
359 |
311 |
IL |
226 |
245 |
FL |
201 |
220 |
MI |
244 |
206 |
MO |
161 |
166 |
NC |
126 |
146 |
A half-dozen Alabama branches of PNC bank will be closing in June....that's among 40 branches in all that will be gone.
Two of the Alabama branches are in Montgomery, one in the Normandale shopping center on Norman Bridge Road. That Center will be almost completely empty after that bank closing. The other local branch closing is on Eastern Boulevard at Woodmere Bvd.
Normandale was the first shopping centers in Alabama when it opened in 1955.
New Hampshire man jailed on charges of threatening U.S. Senator.
A New Hampshire man has been charged with threatening to kill a U.S. senator because he was angry that the senator was “blocking military promotions,” federal prosecutors announced Friday.
Brian Landry, 66, of Franklin, is accused of calling and leaving a threatening voicemail at a district field office of a senator on May 17, according to court documents. Prosecutors did not name the senator in their complaint.
“Hey stupid, I’m a veteran sniper,” Mr. Landy said in the voice mail. “Unless you change your ways, I got my scope pointed in your direction and I’m coming to get you. You’re a dead man walking,” finishing with some expletives.
Landry later told investigators that he had called the senator’s office because he had heard on the news that the senator was “blocking military promotions,” according to court documents.
Landry admitted to federal investigators that he had called the senator’s office but did not recall exactly what he said, the U.S. attorney’s office said. It was not immediately known if he is being represented by an attorney.
If convicted, Landry faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
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"Any public communication made by a political committee—including communications that do not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified federal candidate or solicit a contribution—must display a disclaimer. Furthermore, disclaimers must also appear on political committees' internet websites that are available to the general public, and in certain email communications. Political committees must also include additional information on their solicitations."
"As explained on this page, in addition to the requirements for public communications, printed communications, radio, television (or any broadcast, cable or satellite transmission) and internet communications may have additional requirements.
Disclaimers must be “clear and conspicuous” regardless of the medium in which the communication is transmitted. A disclaimer is not clear and conspicuous if it is difficult to read or hear, or if its placement is easily overlooked."
Source:
https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/advertising-and-disclaimers/
Gomphotheres were among the most diverse proboscideans and spread to nearly every continent during their 20-million-year reign. (Merald Clark/ Florida Museum )
Several postings about the discovery of several predecessors of elephants being discovered just South of Alabama---in Levy County Florida, not far from Gainsville.
HERE's on website to get you started on your online journey to study the elephant like creatures that roamed North America, at least in theory including current-day Alabama, some six million years ago:
Gomphotheres can be coarsely identified by their tusks, which have unique shapes, orientations and banding patterns that differ by group. (Illustrations by Pedro Toledo/ Florida Museum )
Traffic in Montgomery will be a little less tomorrow (Monday)....state workers will be off because it is Jefferson Davis' Birthday.
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Davis was elected Confederate President inside the Alabama Capitol Building, and sworn in at the top of the front steps. The spot is marked by a star.
Montgomery was capitol of the confederacy for only three months. It was then moved to Richmond.
There are several confederate holidays in Alabama:
Robert E. Lee's Birthday - Celebrated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Confederate Memorial Day - Celebrated on the fourth Monday in April
Jefferson Davis' Birthday - Celebrated on the first Monday in June.
A bill was introduced in 2019 by State Rep. John Rogers to attempt to separate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Robert E. Lee’s Birthday. It failed to pass. Sign this petition to help end the combined holiday in Alabama in Mississippi.
*2021 Update: These holidays are still officially included in the State's Calendar. Contact state legislators to remove all confederate holidays from Alabama's Calendar.
"Amazon is working on a product that could turn out to be a game changer for Prime. The firm headed by CEO Andy Jassy is in negotiations with several telephone operators to offer mobile telephone services to U.S. Prime subscribers, according to Bloomberg News.
Those talks began eight weeks ago and are ongoing, reports the news outlet, and involve Verizon Communications (VZ) - Get Free Report, T-Mobile US and Dish Network (DISH) - Get Free Report. There have also been discussions with AT&T (T) - Get Free Report, Bloomberg News said. No deal is imminent, but the outline of the negotiations indicates that Amazon wants to offer either free wireless to Prime subscribers or offer them a $10 package.
FULL STORY is HERE.
From the "First Coast News" in Florida
"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Times-Union NewsGuild has announced plans to join the movement of nationwide strikes, starting on June 5, the day of Gannett's annual shareholder meeting. Hundreds of journalists are expected to take park in the strike, in newsrooms from California to New York.
Journalists across the country are taking part in the strike to demand Gannett get serious about reinvesting in local news. This will be the largest collective action that Gannett employees have taken to date, according to the Times-Union NewsGuild press release."
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The Montgomery Advertiser is a Gannett newspaper. I've sent the editor a question about employees joining the one day strike. I'll update this posting when, and if, there is a reply.
The Advertiser is not included in a list a news guild members, but you never know.
UPDATE: NO response from several emails...to The Advertiser and to the union organizations.
Raleigh, N.C. — Fort Bragg will shed its Confederate namesake to become Fort Liberty in a Friday ceremony that some veterans view as a small but important step in making the U.S. Army more welcoming to current and prospective Black service members.
CBS has the story HERE.
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"Other states, particularly Alabama, have adopted elements of Mississippi’s approach and have improved outcomes — but not nearly as much as Mississippi has. Perhaps that’s because those states’ leaders didn’t work as hard or because Alabama until recently didn’t have a must-pass third-grade reading test, but it’s also true that Mississippi has been guided by a visionary leadership team that may be difficult to recreate elsewhere."
From a NY Times article that starts by writing about our favorite fake praise of our neighbor to the West.
"JACKSON, Miss. — The refrain across much of the Deep South for decades was “Thank God for Mississippi!” That’s because however abysmally Arkansas or Alabama might perform in national comparisons, they could still bet that they wouldn’t be the worst in America. That spot was often reserved for Mississippi.
So it’s extraordinary to travel across this state today and find something dazzling: It is lifting education outcomes and soaring in the national rankings."
I HOPE the article will be well-read in the Alabama Department of Education!
Full article HERE.
An AL.COM editorial about Alabama's Coach (I mean Senator) Tuberville.
Read it HERE.
And a P.S. from me: where are the comments from Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl and Black GOP State Rep. Kenneth Paschal? And anyone else in state government? Can their silence be understood to be agreement.
UPDATE: Even Tuberville's brother is appalled!
"I’ll try and make this brief. As some of you know, my brother Tommy Tuberville is the senior U.S. Senator from the state of Alabama elected in 2021.Due to recent statements by him promoting racial stereotypes, white nationalism and other various controversial topics, I feel compelled to distance myself from his ignorant, hateful rants. What I’m trying to say is that, I DO NOT agree with any of the vile rhetoric coming out of his mouth."
How's this for a nightmare headline:
We watched an amazing documentary this week....and it even included a Montgomery Alabama element...EJI's Bryan Stevenson is one of the main interviewees. (Note: there are some especially disturbing photos and films of lynchings in the production.)
It focuses on a woman who spent some of her early years in Mississippi, and then returned in her 107th year.
Watch the trailer HERE.
(Among other places, you can watch it on Prime.)
ABC News reports the story HERE.
Rosalynn Carter diagnosed with dementia at 95.
The Carters are the longest-ever married presidential couple, having wed in 1946. At 98, Jimmy Carter is the oldest living former president and the longest-lived former president in U.S. history.
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The Alabama men and women who have died in combat since 9/11. BUT...
"Why Don't Women Have to Sign Up for the Draft?
The law doesn't require that women register for the draft. Although it's a subject of intense debate, and many other countries require women to complete national service or register for the draft, the U.S. does not.
In 2016, Congress came close to including women in the draft. House and Senate committees both approved a provision in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that would have made the change. But ultimately, lawmakers stripped out the provision and ordered a review of the Selective Service System instead.
Unless Congress changes the law, women are not permitted or required to register for the Selective Service System."
(From the www.military.com website)
May I impolitely add: BS!
It is 2023! There can be no justification for excluding women from the draft registration requirement. (Actually draft them? That's another question.)
Women are excluded because the political power brokers know the people (who brag about supporting the military etc) would never allow 18 year old women to be pulled away from their families involuntarily.
Their 18 year old sons? Sure. We can do with them as we please.
Women? revolution time.
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| Jefferson Davis Statue at The Alabama Capitol |
A column in The Tampa Bay Times discusses the cause of the American Civil War, including quotes from representatives of the states that seceded.
"Alabama Commissioner Stephen F. Hale wrote a public letter to the governor of Kentucky on December 27, 186,... The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in November 1860 was nothing less than “an open declaration of war” on the white people of the South. And “the triumph of this new theory of government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassinations and her wives and daughters to pollution and violation to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans.”
SOURCE: HERE.
Am i
wearing out? (WHAT???)
or has it been
underway all along?
...ososslowly.
crawling.
sneaking up.
It is the largest existing confederate monument, and yet some of the confederate imagery has been removed to a less visible site.
The Atlanta Journal headline:
"The Confederate flags, donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, went up in the early 1960s.
Most of the monuments and statues they helped install were done decades after the Civil War. In fact the approaching U.S. Civil Rights movement seems to have increased the activity in the early 1900's.
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